User reviews

I have to admit that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was so much better than I expected. This is the prequel to the original Star Trek and even has some familiar characters like Spock and Uhura. It's led by Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and has basically the same plot as the original in where they explore the galaxy. This is actually one of the most well received Star Trek shows ever by both the critics and fans, it currently has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a new fresh feel while also honoring the original. This is a show that both new fans and longtime fans can both enjoy. This hooked me from the very first episode and didn't let go. I binged the entire first season over a weekend and I'm already looking forward for next season.

Strange New Worlds is a fabulous Trekverse series in contrast to some recent offerings. Vintage stylistic choices from uniforms, through technology to sounds, together with opening credits and episodic stories make this a joy to watch for lovers of original Trek.

The stories are focussed, setting the tone, challenges and developing relationships between the crew members very well. The inclusion of younger versions of familiar characters, is a welcome and relatable anchoring to the series.

SNW comes with the familiar plot holes and humour blended nicely together with subtle references to earth's history and Kirk-like problem solving.

Mix all the above together with an excellent cast, this is a winner - I, for one, am very much looking forward to seeing more.

Captain Pike's swooshy future pompadour is completely distracting from most of what he says, serious or comedic, in Season 3. Which means it's always the star of the scene. You know I'm right. Do yourself a favor: watch any scene where the camera is centred on him and try not to look at his hair. You can't. No one can!

Who doesn't love Star Trek??

TOS morality tales and TNG science, updated for 2022 with an ensemble cast and one full story per episode.

I can even forgive the fact that the 2022 Enterprise looks two centuries ahead of the 1966 Enterprise, because they got the details right and we do have good cgi and sets these days.

A dream come true, this incarnation of Trek. Having watched the first three episodes, Thank you production team and writers!

I've only seen the first episode, but I can say with certainty, this is the first time I've been optimistic about nu Trek.

It is actually optimistic. It seems episodic. It seems like Trek. Characters are also likeable, relatable.

This is BY FAR the best realization of ST:TOS -- The Original Series. It was a self contained mission. It delivered a morality message. It addressed issues of psychology and emotional intelligence. It worked to connect various timelines. It did not take itself too seriously, at the right times.

Stories that leaked about series development, indicated that Anson Mount had a number of conditions, for taking the role. I am pleased that he persisted and persevered, and has taken the rigid "starch" out of the captains uniform -- present in every series after TOS.

I am also VERY impressed with the rest of the casting. And, I hope they explain why the bridge is mostly female -- which is absolutely WONDERFUL! The rethinking of Nurse Chappel's character is compelling. The casting of Babs Olusanmokun as the Doctor is genius. Christina Chong as security chief (a position that didn't exist in TOS) brings a spirit reminiscent of Cara Gee in The Expanse, and manifests Gene's vision realized in ST:TNG.

Let's face it, ST:TOS was full of mistakes, inconsistencies, and many rediculously bad stories. ST:SNW isn't perfect either, but is clearly making the best effort yet.

And yes, screenwriters of today are less literate and don't do their homework or research. ST:DIS confused flaunt with flout, and now ST:SNW confused com (communications) with conn (control). Even other reviewers spelled it wrong. To err is to be human. Embody the Star Trek ideal -- HAVE COMPASSION & EMPATHY.

I would love to see more than 10 episodes per year.

In terms of when this is set, it's important to remember it's just before the original series with Kirk and way before The Next Generation. You need to take this into account when evaluating, looking at what the mission is, looking at the sets, costumes and all round character of the show.

It has embraced that which we're all used to from that era of the Trek universe.

The rule breaking, edge of your seat decision making, pushing boundaries, constant uncertainty and volatility, tongue in cheek scenarios, a healthy dose of sarcasm, wit and humour all mixed with a decent amount of action, wide variety of aliens and great effects and CGI.

Anson Mount nails Pike. Particularly as a predecessor to Kirk who was a happy maverick. The surrounding cast just excel it even further and it's tough to fault any of them.

The mention of other reviewers with "wokeness" I believe are mixing it up with ethnic diversity, which is beautiful and rich across the entire cast.

If you're looking for wokeness and a trek through emotions.......watch Star Trek Discovery.

This, nails what Star Trek is. Great stories, on a 5 year mission with wonderful diversity and a fresh take on that era of the trek universe.

Long may it last. They have so many possibilities to deepen a lot of the characters and expand the universe even further.

I just finished watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and have to say I really enjoyed it. I don't consider myself a huge Treky or anything, I watched the original a little but it was on before I was born and watched Next Generation when I was a little kid but don't remember too much, I do like the recent movies a lot though. Anyway, just as a sci-fi fan with a little knowledge on Star Trek...I liked it. It seems that even most die hard Star Trek fans like this one and they hate all the new stuff. The writing and cast are what makes this so good and the visuals are also pretty good for a tv show. I'd definitely recommend this to both Star Trek fans and sci-fi fans who don't know anything about Star Trek and are just looking for a good sci-fi show to have fun watching.

First episode, and we have an encapsulated story, with a beginning, middle and end, in which the dilemmas of modern society are explored in a self-reflective way, using an alien civilization as a parable.

The old classic trek formula with updated and impressive visuals.

And the same can be said of the cast, all charming and easily relatable. But keep in mind that some are remakes of familiar characters. Some people will not like that.

So far, this is the Kurtzman-era series that has positively impressed me the most. Let's see if the quality holds up.

Still. There are some creative choices that bother me a little.

Probably my favorite character from this new series, is La'an Noonien-Singh. One of the best officers onboard and a dashing beauty. But just the fact that she's a Noonien-Singh is going to unnecessarily stress many of the more purist fans.

So far this series is a significant improvement, it has everything many fans have long claimed. And still. They keep some of the tricks, which mess with the cannon, unnecessarily. For me is a minor complaint, but for some boomer fans it's sacrilege.

But clearly, in my opinion, it's the most enjoyable of all the recent Star Trek series. I really liked this episode. And I will look forward to the next.

Strange New Worlds began like a love letter to classic Trek, episodic structure, a charismatic Pike, and just enough retro charm to make us believe the franchise had found its soul again. For a few glorious episodes, it felt like Starfleet was back on course.

But then came the drift. The tonal chaos. The genre-hopping. The canon crimes. And suddenly, we weren't watching Star Trek anymore, we were watching Kurtzman Trek, where emotional depth is replaced by trauma flashbacks, and legacy characters are rewritten like fanfic with a studio budget.

Episodes like Four-and-a-Half Vulcans and Wedding Bell Blues don't just miss the mark, they vaporise it. Spock becomes a rom-com lead, La'an dreams of ballet, and Chapel's arc feels like it was lifted from a CW drama. The Enterprise crew spends more time navigating their feelings than the galaxy, and the Prime Directive is treated like a vague suggestion.

This isn't exploration. It's exposition. It's Star Trek: Feelings Edition, where every character has a tragic backstory and every plot twist is designed to trend on social media for 24 hours before being forgotten

The production values are stellar. The cast is game. But the writing? It's a transporter accident of tone, pacing, and philosophy. Trek used to challenge us. Now it coddles us. It used to ask "What does it mean to be human?" Now it asks "Did Spock text back?"

Strange New Worlds started with promise, but somewhere along the way, it warped into Kurtzman Trek, a franchise boldly going... away from everything that made Star Trek matter.

After what started with such promise, this show has worn out the patience of Trek viewers. The Star Trek universe is supposed to provide high-quality speculative science-fiction, and humanist philosophy and ethical dilemma. It provides the cerebral and tender introspection that seldom is seen in other media. But instead, SNW has suffered from an identity crisis-parodying the genre lazily and compromising its foundational tenets to try and win new fans. Trek has always tried new things, brought levity to the stories and episodes.. but there was purpose. Like life, Trek has always been intentional. What is intentional about SNW? What even is their mission anymore? It is a completely tone deaf series at this point. Lower Decks, Prodigy, Picard season 3 have been exemplary additions to the cannon, staying true to Roddenberry's vision, inspiring the viewers to strive for a better future, better versions of ourselves. SNWs is Doctor Who meets love Island. Such a stain on Star Trek.

So, when I was growing up corporations were taking over major studios, and the formulation of film and TV went from showing how to behave, to showing how mental health was the cause of all problems, to hos not to behave, to how domestication was the solution for everything.

It's why soap operas are all but gone It's why original 1960s Star Trek and other TV shows and films had stronger stories. It's why there's so much junk produced today.

That includes this show. Huge production values but another complete trashing of what had been established in the form of a kind of reboot, but with a lot of female domestication flourishes to make the thing watchable by couples and even some single females. There're a lot of emotional flourishes here that really have absolutely nothing to do with the story.

I shouldn't get too upset. Film and TV are all about visual deception to tell a story, and so you get producers who keep thinking that if you dump more money and art direction into a project that that'll sell a show to a veteran and newer audience both. Make it look pretty and all will be forgiven. Make it sound good too and they'll love you.

In shows like Time Tunnel, I dream of Jeannie, Adam 12, The Rockford Files and so forth, the story took precedence over character. Men did not speak in hushed tones in a mock attempt to seduce the ladies, they spoke in clear tones. People who had issues either held it together for the sake of other characters or just let it out to further the actual plot and story, they didn't have their own dramatic moments to accentuate anything that might be afflicting the audience members.

And that's the difference not just between the old Star Trek TV show I loved in reruns in the 1970s and early 1980s, but the huge shift in media emphasis or story focus. In Strange New Worlds we have a female officer in the ship's luxuriant galley that looks like something out of Architectural Digest issue commenting on how delicious a slice of cake is, and talks to the captain in between mouthfuls. And again the plot is secondary. It's the personal issues of individual characters and their relationships that is the focus.

Oh sure, the uniforms look better, the actual ship has all kinds of detail touchups, but it's just mental health TV when original Star Trek was about addressing problems and plots that were the actual story, and any character issues were derived from that, they were not their own thing and given their moment in the spot light so that individual audience members with similar issues could feel momentarily important, nor so that older fans who stuck with this garbage could feel that their show was important; i.e. An ego-boost from a rebooted good looking show that was just the same old trash re-invented by sociologists.

And the reason I keep trashing more iterations of what used to be my favorite media property is because Star Trek was an adventure show whose emphasis was on solving plots, and presented what people thought a practical future might look like, not a future that people would like to see, complete with commentary on slices of chocolate cake made in the galley.

To me "Strange New Worlds" is just more therapy TV. Older TV shows showed people who had personal issues as part of the story, not as a tapestry of interpersonal interactions where every character had their moment for attention, and not the focus for a plot driven show.

Why on Earth these people just can't go back and make a simple adventure show with the old story format I'll never know. A good part of it is to cater to demographics, especially now since females have taken up what in my time would be called non-traditional roles; i.e. There're more female police, soldiers, even fire fighters and construction workers. But if a producer feels the need to alter an adventure show's format to make it more open to emotional interpretation, then maybe that show isn't worth making in the first place.

The first several minutes of an old school Star Trek TV show you knew the threat or dilemma Kirk and Crew were facing, even if it involved Captain Pike on some level. With this show I couldn't tell what the story was about until a full ten minutes into the thing, and by that time my eyes were heavy and I wanted to fall asleep.

Again, why people continually give praise to gloss is beyond me. The truth of the matter is that I understand that they are taken in by the costumes, the nebula in the space ships shots (which I made popular by fan fic I posted on the net), the sets, the delivery of dialogue ... but that's still not strong nor solid story material. It's gloss meant for all of the aforementioned reasons I put in this commentary.

Well, I've had enough of trying to give this media property second chances. I guess I'm all Trekked out. One of the many reasons I quit film and TV was because I did not understand the continued deception for formulating story material. As it turns out all of film and TV are mental health exercises. And where that's sort of always been kind of the case, prior to the corporate takeover in the 1970s emphasis was on story, not aggrandizing personal emotions and relationships. You took care of the problem first, and then relaxed with your favorite people afterwards.

In short, I can't take this junk anymore. At least it's not shot a-la Shaky-cam style to give it a faux documentary feel, that would have had me putting my foot through my TV.

Finally. Star Trek finds its soul again. Great episodic stories, modernised but true to its source. Interesting characters, with both entertaining and engaging exploration. My only small complaint is that the intro music doesn't have the same pull as the earlier series but there's no such thing as perfect. Overall, the creators have managed to balance the old with the new, and the result is both visually and emotionally stimulating. In my humble opinion, it has refreshed the Star Trek timeline and given hope that more will be possible. Strange New World's has become a firm favourite. Keep it coming!!

After 5 years they've finally got it right, star trek the way it should be. I now serial is the way modern show are these days but star trek has it's sharm when it's episodic. Every week a new adventure.

2 episodes in and I am impressed. So far this is a great show with a great cast of people. I have enjoyed the episodes I have watched to date and I predict that I will continue to enjoy this show. It is great to see this science fiction classic being treated the way it deserves respecting the attributes that made it great instead of trying to change it into something "better" and in the process ruining the whole reason it was great.

It's a great throwback to TOS. The characters we know joined by characters who's history we never got to see on air. The easter eggs are plenty with only 1 I didnt really like. The sets of course look way beyond TOS which is unavoidable but they do a good job in general of recreating the feel of TOS. I enjoyed the premiere and look forward to the series.

The big question that remains is why didn't CBS and its showrunners do this sooner? What led to the production of flops like Discovery and Picard if they already had all the gold in their hands? But, in the end, reason (and emotion) seem to have won their place in the trajectory of Star Trek's legacy. Strange New Worlds managed to bring tears to the eyes of millions of trekkers. May it continue like this, boldly going where no other series can go.

This is way better than Discovery. It was very enjoyable to watch and I'm looking forward to the next episode - something I'd never say about Discovery.

Season 1 was an A Season 2 a B Season 3 a C

The show has lost its way unfortunately. Too many unnecessary characters, too much love interest for Spock (one each season?), Pike gets let's focus each season, the first officer is practically non existent, too many "silly" episodes, and amazingly the show is called "Strange New Worlds" but each season they visit fewer and fewer worlds and encounter fewer and fewer new species.

Perhaps because it was only renewed for two more seasons but the show in 2025 is really getting down to business laying the groundwork for Kirk and the crew from TOS to get rolling. No more musical episodes or weird offshoots, just a good Trek feeling (though turning the Gorn into a Borg-like threat is an intriguing move). It's great watching Spock mentor the young Kirk through a disastrous mission on the Farragut into the confidence we'll see later on. It feels almost a shame Anson Mount has to relinquish the role of Pike into his ultimate fate as a vegetable given how fully-fleshed he's made the character (I saw him and Ethan Peck discuss their love of the series at the Trek Con during the writer's strike). Maybe they can somehow fold that alternate future where he escapes the explosion into the new Academy series; he's been the best Captain since Scott Bakula on Enterprise. Don't need no doctor for these Strange New Worlds (other than Bones and that African guy)!

This is not a terrible Star Trek (like "Discovery"). It's okay. I find it difficult to get invested in the characters with only 46 episodes spread over five years.

The stories are okay. There have been a couple of real duds, though (the "singing" episode in year two and the "holodeck" episode in year 3). "Lower Decks" was a far superior show than "Discovery" and also better than this show. I thought "Picard" was excellent and I would like to see that be sequeled by the young(er) crew led by 7 of 9. But more than 50-odd shows... I miss the old Star Treks (especially DS9).

2 seasons were absolutely great. All the old Star Trek vibe and everything. A Pleasure to watch. But something major happened with season 3. It's like the creators of the show lost any and all story telling abilities whatsoever. It's completely different. There is just absolutely nothing in it. No philosophical dilemmas, no scifi stories, no more Star Trek... I cannot believe the same people created season 3. This one is more like really bad fan fiction with good actors and visual effects. It must be terrible for the actors though. I cannot even imagine... I've seen they can do their jobs OK in first two seasons, but they are not given the chance in the third one at all. Such a huge disappointment after such a great start. It's unbelievable how bad it got. No Star Trek vibe left at all in season 3. I feel really weird giving it 2 stars, because I would honestly rate season one at least 8, but the third one is just that bad.

Just finished watching the first episode. The only advice I have to give to the writers and studio is - KEEP THIS FORMULA. Finally, a Star Trek series the FEELS like Star Trek. Watching this gave me goosebumps and satisfied a deep craving for Star Trek I haven't felt in many, many years. For the love of the Federation, stick with what works and everything will be fine.

I absolutely love this series. In my book it is one of the best. I believe, however, that Kirk was a hard pill to swallow. I absolutely loved him in the Vampire Diaries. But Kirk? Please producers lighten his hair. Make him more Kirk like. Just a suggestion to make him more like Kirk whom we love.i have to add more for this review to be acceptable. That's BS! Give Kirk lighter hair. Take my word for it.

I quite liked the first episode, i like the intro, the music is almost as good as Prodigy's theme, but not as good because the repetitive part (the one which can be learned by the fans) is missing but is still great, the visuals are fantastic, the acting is great, only Khan's relative belongs to 2022's omnipresent kringe era. This is probably one of the best, Star Trek productions of the present and it is what Discovery should have been from the start.